ИСТИНА

На материале параллельных фрагментов немецких и русских текстов проводится контрастивный анализ частицы ja и ее переводных эквивалентов ведь и же в контексте констативов и выявляются семантические и семантико-синтаксические различия в функционировании этих частиц, не зафиксированные в словарях и грамматиках. In the paper German modal particle JA in constative utterances is compared to its Russian translation equivalents VED’ and ŽE on the basis of studying parallel samples of modern German prose and its professional translations into Russian. The analysis reveals the following differences: 1) VED’ presupposes its proposition as а fact while JA and ŽE do not, and it explains the ability of the latter two to be freely used in imperatives; 2) VED’ and ŽE specify the degree of rhetoric activity (≈ intencity of illocutionary force) as normal and high resp. while for JA this semantic feature is irrelevant and this makes the choice of its translation equivalent dependant on such pragmatic features of the context as its relation to speaker’s interests and interpersonal relations among the interlocutors; 3) JA can be used in responses, implying yes / no answers to direct questions, while VED’ and ŽE cannot occur in this context; 4) the use of VED’ in answers demands the dictal component of its propositional content to be different from that of the question; 5) VED’ cannot occur in correcting remarks and direct answers if it is not preceded by initial adversative particles (NO, А, DA). Its use together with one of these particles overtly marks the response as conflicting with some of the addressee’s initial assumptions and thus violating the maxim of consent and so in some cases it may damage semantic equivalence of the translation with respect to the interpersonal aspects of utterance meaning.